So here’s the deal.

It’s NOT always sparkle and shine in my life.

There are days like this week when I am burdened for a precious friend and feel helpless in the situation. When I am a bit tired of working, parenting alone, being this age with kids, being indoors, wanting something fun, loneliness, just the keeping on keeping on.

And there are some days when the only prayer I can form is, “Oh God, oh God, oh God!”

That is the real truth, folks. I get in those places too.

I thought maybe you should know.

I never want you to feel as if I downplay your pain. Or suggest that your difficult situation can just go away “poof”.

But I post the positive things I do because SOMEONE needs to read them.

And in my inner spirit those things are ME. They are what I do to keep doing.

I smile, I pray, I spend time being thankful, I reach out to others, I help others if at all possible….

All these things help to center me and bring the “yuck” back into perspective.

I do know that when we fill our brains with positive thoughts,

we attract more positive energy to ourselves.

And that is what being thankful is about.

That is what “speaking to the mountain” (see previous post) is about.

We actually DO have a choice in how we spend our focus/energy.

And when I’m in a funk, I choose to spend mine by rejoicing in all the good I see around me.

Being thankful for the many, many good things in my life.

And realizing that these funks don’t last forever.

Two things I know–God is always faithful, and the sun will eventually shine!

Oh darling, don’t you know that who you are is the most amazing and fabulous gift to the world? Who you are is full of wonder and possibility. You deserve to be loved and fulfilled in what you do. I know it’s tough many days. I know some of you are not in an ideal situation. I know some of you feel as if the ground is swallowing you up and closing in over you.

I know because I’ve been there. And it took action and big steps (in little baby steps) to get me out of that hole. But I am here to tell you that YOU can start today to change your situation. There are people who will help you.

Do not try to do it alone. I know, precious one, that you feel as if you must be strong and do this life thing (as hard and unpleasant as it is) by yourself because that’s who you are. Well, you only limit yourself when you limit your possibilities.

Start talking to people. Start saying what you want and need. I promise, lightning will not strike you. Start asking for help. Start with someone you trust and get them involved in seeking help you and ways to improve and/or get out of your situation.

You are NOT alone! You do not have to suffer in silence. There ARE solutions. I know. I found them.

The biggest thing is to start realizing how valuable you are. How much the world needs your special, unique gifts and love. Start telling yourself the TRUTH–that you are amazing and have wonderful abilities and gifts for this world.

Start seeking ways to BE who you really are. To pour out your beautiful spirit and shine your gorgeous light.

Oh my gosh I’m so excited! Deborah St. Hilaire from Bay City is interviewing me, live, tonight on her Divalution Radio! Check it out. 7:00 p.m. (Eastern) on W4DIVAS.com. It should be a good time. 🙂

Also, we will meet early and collaborate about holding women’s small group meetings at her amazing studio/storefront/gathering space. This has been one of my dreams for five years. And what will I call these gatherings? Well, as Passionista At Large, they will be “Passionista Playdates”!! Comment below if you are interested in these and I’ll keep you posted. (Location is Bay city, Michigan)

It seems my words of the year “Expand” from last year and “Abundance” for this year are working for me! Sometimes it really takes just putting one foot in front of the other and doing what you know to do at the time.

It doesn’t matter what is being said about you.

It doesn’t matter what others think of you.

What matters is what you think of yourself!

And if you believe lies about yourself, then you will act on those lies instead of the truth.

Any words that make you seem “less than” the amazing person you were created to be is a LIE!

Those words may come from the chatter in your brain, just regurgitating things you have heard.

They may come from actual people who are small-minded and have their own agenda.

But whatever the source, you need to STOP listening to the derogatory lies and begin to speak truth to yourself.

Because when you believe lies, you think small about yourself.

It’s pretty hard to launch out of your comfortable, ho-hum, dream-draining life by thinking small.

You can barely rise to doing those things the world needs from you–your purpose for being here.

“But I don’t WANT to leave my comfort zone! It’s comfortable.”

Ummm, yeah. And it’s restricting and limiting. (Redundant, I know, going for the effect.)

And leaving your comfort zone is like jumping off the high dive.

But don’t you want to be the best you can be?

Don’t you want to realize amazing and wonderful things about yourself–things you never knew?

When we rocket ourselves (because that’s what it takes!) outside of our comfort zone to do those things that our heart really, really longs to do, all kinds of new worlds and information opens up to us! It could become quite an adventure–mine has!

And the wonderful thing is that our hearts and spirits become more fulfilled as we begin to venture out and try things our heart is leading us to do.

Today I am sharing with you Vanessa’s post on At The Picket Fence. She wrote about how we are called to be the light in this increasingly dark world. It resonated with me, perhaps because I believe my purpose is to shine my light as I speak life and truth in my writing and speaking, and even in my Empowordment Cards. I love what ATPF and other bloggers are doing. She writes about it at the end of her post (in the green). Read on!

Truly we are living in a time where darkness could threaten to overtake us. Many things are pulling at our spirits and some days it’s a huge battle to stay positive and uplifting.

If you are a parent, you know the effects of being grumpy, impatient, or dismissive to your children while you are feeling down in the dumps. It’s quite important to be on top of your feelings and communicate with your children if you are having a bad day. That is being honest. We shouldn’t pretend everything is fine if we are feeling out-of-sorts, because children are really good detectives. And, at least with my own, they will become anxious, sensing that something is wrong, and begin to act out themselves.

Unfortunately, right now during election time, anxiety and fear are on the rise. I’m not going to debate anything here, but if you have even been half awake the last several months, you know what I’m talking about. Vanessa writes about it and adds her wisdom. Make sure you visit her site to take advantage of the opportunity mentioned at the end of her post.

BE THE LIGHT

The other evening I found myself feeling so down. My spirit felt burdened, I was grumpy and I just wanted to crawl into bed and pull the covers up over my head. But, as I stood at the kitchen sink washing the last of the dinner dishes I began to wonder why I was feeling that way. Nothing bad had actually happened. There was nothing in my own life where I could actually draw a correlation between it and my feelings. I couldn’t even blame it on PMS. So I started thinking back through my day, trying to trace the shift in my mood. And that’s when I realized what had triggered these feelings.

Social media.

A discussion had taken place on Facebook. A political one (shocker!). And I found myself getting sucked into it.

My engagement in it was minimal, but the effect it was having on me was significant. I allowed it to suck me in, to take me to a place that felt very dark. It left me feeling confused, fearful and isolated.

As I stood there at my kitchen sink, washing up the last of the dinner dishes, I realized that I was giving power to this darkness by permitting it to invade my mind and my spirit.

And that’s when I felt the gentle voice of my Heavenly Father reminding me of the truth. The truth of His sovereignty and what He is calling me to be in this temporary world of mine.

He is calling me to be light.

So, when I was approached by my dear friend Deborah of Salvage Sister and Mister to join the challenge to be the light in the ever growing dark world and confusing world of social media, I didn’t hesitate to say yes!

***During the week of Nov 1-8, 8 bloggers will share their stories and encouragement to be the light in the darkness.***

The purpose of the ‘Be the Light Challenge’ is to encourage~

How to share opinions (political or not) in a Godly manner

How to guard our hearts and minds

How to deal with conflict online

Setting limits/boundaries (1 Corinthians 6:12)

Encouraging/building others up

Fruits of the Spirit

Visit her blog post for the links to other bloggers that are helping us through the darkness. I’m really glad they are doing this.

Hello lovelies!

Goodness this last six months has been incredibly busy. I seriously don’t know how I had time to teach full time before I retired. Of course, I’ve added three jobs since then, all of them MY businesses. And I am entirely responsible for all three. That along with raising two special needs kiddos in their teen years (and all the doctor visits involved with that) has kept me super busy.

I will catch up on happenings later. Right now I want to show you my 2017 calendar! I’m very excited about it. Instead of using a template with the borders provided like the last two years, I created all my own borders. I also decided that instead of using my previously published cards, I would design all new ones.

This year I focused on affirmations. For half of the months you have three “I am” statements to read every day. Thus you will hopefully integrate them into your spirit!

For the other six months I have given written statements about you. I truly enjoyed creating this calendar. I know it will make a difference in your self-esteem and also in that of the females in your life.

It’s a great gift for friends, daughters, granddaughters, nieces, ANY person who could use a little reminder of how amazing and capable they are–which means all of us!

Visual reminders are the best!! And then when we say these words out loud? Oh yeah!! Way to start believing them. We can reprogram our brains to think the truth about who we are, instead of listening to the lies we tell ourselves.

The pages are easy to write on, which is important in my book. Glossy on the picture and matt on the calendar. Perfect!
The squares marking each day are a bit over 1 1/4″ square, large enough to jot your goals or achievements down. Great for marking progress each day!

Size is 17″ by 11″ when open so it can tuck into a small space. But it will make quite the visual impact! Place by your bathroom mirror to give you a message every morning, or in your office or work area so that while you are daydreaming you’ll be reminded of WHO you are!!

I really hope you will add one of these to your life because you deserve to be told how wonderful you are on a daily basis! If you’d like to purchase you can go to my shop on Etsy.

You were created for a purpose

and are amazing,

creative,

valuable,

and productive.

YOU were born to shine!!

Do you believe that? Or do you struggle to believe that you were born to shine because instead you believe lies about yourself? Perhaps lies like you are stupid, unlovable, you will never amount to anything, you are ugly, or you are worthless.

If so, these lies are the result of believing negative things you have felt or that people have said about you. Many of us have done that and are now full of hurt and feel broken.

So what do I mean when I say “lies”?

Lies are thoughts or the words and actions of others that cause us to behave in a self-defeating or destructive way. Lies are limiting because they create FEAR and hold us back.

I describe fear as

Firmly Encouraging and Allowing Rubbish.

When we listen to all that rubbish going on in our brain it’s impossible to be our real, true selves. Most likely we haven’t been taught about how thought processes work so we continue to believe rubbish about ourselves. It piles up over the years until we have a whole ton of garbage that weighs us down. My goal is to help you, in a simplified way, understand how our thoughts can work against us.

The lies we believe during our formative years set us up to believe lies as adults. By the time we become adults we are firmly entrenched in this belief system which affects how we consider ourselves.